Bubbly
by In Smithereens
Summary: /How thin would you have to be to float away?/ A look into Ginny and Luna's minds as anorexia grips them. Second person narrative. Warning: may trigger.
1. Ginny

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter franchise.

You paint your fingernails rose red, working hard to get a perfect finish. The fumes go to your head and it hurts to breathe them, but it's another avoidance tactic. You can't eat with wet nails, you shouldn't try to pick anything up for an hour at least to keep them free of smudges. At least that's what you tell people. They're starting to notice, girls that hadn't noticed you before stop you in corridors to comment on your weight, gather around you and fuss around you, treatment you've never received before, growing up in a house full of brothers. These girls, they make you feel better about yourself, make you feel as though you are superior. They sit around the dormitories in groups, stuffing their faces with chocolate and complaining about their figures, completely unable to control themselves while you run around the castle with her, everything feeling so much more real. Feeling 'bubbly', as Luna called it. It's the most interesting sensation, your body seems to focus completely, your brain is free of unsure thoughts and your body is almost shuddering every time you move. Your eyes open wide and you long for something to do, something to touch and feel, all of your senses buzzing.

You stay outside for as long as possible, legs turning blue in the bitter cold and your bodies becoming still. You light a cigarette and you wish that you hadn't, Luna hates it, smoking makes her hungry, but you need the warmth and the gentle rush of nicotine entering your brain. Your mother found your cigarettes at Christmas and threatened to charm your mouth into a permanent pucker if she ever caught you smoking. It's easy to get away with things in a family of nine, one of your brothers always does something worse and your mother forgets about you. After all, you're the daughter they wished for. You couldn't possibly be anything less than perfect.

It began as an experiment, you and Luna testing yourselves, trying to see if you could survive hardship. Trying to toughen yourselves up. It didn't take much to persuade her to continue beyond the weekly schedule you had agreed on. Sometimes you wonder why she was so quick to follow you, why she goes out of her way to please you, when she is so defiant of convention, so much her own person most of the time. Secretly you wonder if maybe she likes you in another way, if she thinks you're wonderful and beautiful, if you're not reading too much into your shared smiles. It's sick really, how much of a narcissist you are, you just assume that she's in love with you. That you're funny and brave and interesting. You can't understand why someone would stick around with you if you didn't have all of those qualities. So you put on a show, exaggerating all of your movements, waggling you eyebrows and cracking jokes at every possible moment.

(As if someone would really want to watch you.)

Performing like this, you can ignore serious thoughts for the most part. You just have to focus on the task at hand, the role that you're playing. And try not to be alone, you should never be alone. Sometimes, when you are in the dormitory late at night you play a game in your head, pretending you're being interviewed for a magazine. You perfect your answers to questions that you don't work very hard on. If it was a real interview, the journalist would have to be trying to stroke your ego asking such easy questions. You silently recite anecdotes, working on your facial expressions and slight quirks that would make you more interesting to watch. It sounds mad when you think about it, so you try not to. You just continue your stories until morning comes and you have something to distract you.

It's funny how people think you should be weak. That they imagine anyone fasting would be bedridden and walk slowly, slouching as though their body is too heavy for them to carry. But you're strong. You can now talk yourself into anything. You can stand bare-legged in the snow without noticing the cold. Really, food only weighs you down. People are tricked into believing they need it, so they get hungry. You haven't felt hungry in a long time, or at least that's what you tell yourself. No, you feel great, better than great, you feel like you've become something else. Something better than everyone else. You aren't weak anymore and it feels wonderful.

Luna falls ill a lot. You wonder if she's got something wrong with her. Well, something other than the obvious. She tries to pretend that she's okay, she doesn't want her father to find out about what she's been doing so she doesn't want to go to the Hospital Wing. You play the selfless nurse, brewing her potions and giving her enough pepper-up that she can make it through classes. You wish you were intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw, but the Hat didn't even consider it. You don't have any friends in your own house. It's your personality, you're too intimidating for most people. That's what you tell yourself, at least. You're secretly pleased when you notice someone talking about you, though you pretend to ignore it.

You wonder if anything but that bubbly feeling is real, if you're a real person anymore. But those thoughts are quickly shaken off when the next act of your show begins.

Author's note: This is my first time using a second person narrative, so would love feedback. I might turn this into a multi-chapter, without the second person narrative, if anyone is interested in reading more.


	2. Luna

Luna

There's a bang that follows you around, making you flinch and squeeze your eyes shut. She shivered and put the powder in too quickly and then there were colours and then there was a bang. Or maybe the colours came first. You get it muddled sometimes. Potions class makes you dizzy, the heady feeling the different smells give off coupled with occasional crackles and bangs (you flinch every time) makes everything more muddled. Your brain begins to cave in on itself, when you close your eyes everything gets smaller and smaller until you are convinced you are a giant and the rest of the world has shrunk, you open them and the feeling is still there creating a panic that makes your eyelids flutter and your breathing quicken. Were you always like this? Was it because of what happened?

More importantly, would your father ever be able to forgive himself if he found out what's happening to you?

Eating is funny, food covers you in some kind of goo that slips and seeps all over your thoughts, dulling the colours until you don't feel real at all. When you are hungry it feels like bubbles are popping in your brain and behind your eyeballs, creating a kind of clarity that makes the growing and shrinking thoughts less scary (more real, though that makes no sense, why would you want them to feel real? But it seems as though real is better than a memory or a dream, something intangible that will never go away. Things that are real always go away). Sometimes you get frustrated with Ginny; she doesn't understand what being bubbly really is. She just thinks it means being hungry and half-mad with it. But you need her. You need her more than you need anyone else. She's the only person in your life that feels really real (or perhaps really pretend, like you. Yes, perhaps you are pretend and everybody else is far too real. So real that it hurts to look at them, so you are left squinting your eyes against the brightness of these people that seem to be made of sun-bright colours), she's rust, white and blue in the moonlight, colours made for the moon and the cold, not sunshine and warmth. Because the sun and the warm are too far away, too long ago. Ginny is easy to watch and listen, posing and laughing at every turn. Giving you exaggerated winks and smiles when you need reassurance, when you get too cold and too muddled and nothing feels real anymore. She doesn't look at you strangely when you're quiet and your head's in a mess and you wince at the bang that won't stop following you.

Is it because she understands?

But she couldn't. Her family is so close. She's friends with Harry Potter and he is nice, he doesn't watch you like the others. He helped her to fight Lord Voldemort in your first year at Hogwarts. And her brothers are all brave and funny and nice. Her mother smells of fresh bread and flowers and her father has a warm smile, not one that looks like it hurts. It's not that you are jealous of her, but you can't understand how someone so perfect could feel like you. Could need to stop eating to fix her brain. She's happy, she's always happy, with that laugh that sounds like water boiling and bubbling over. But if she was really happy she wouldn't be doing this. She had to have something terribly wrong with her, something that made her seem so happy when she was obviously so muddled and sad, just like you.

Is that the only reason you like her? That she might be worse than you?

There was a boy in the summer. He thought that he could tie you down to your body and make you real again. He said that he knew how you felt (how you feel), and that he could make it better, that if you just let him he would make you better. He promised that he just wanted to help you, that you were beautiful and interesting; he said it again and again until your head spun. But then there were burning hands on your skin and you felt too much. From the roots of your hair to the tips of your toes you crackled, like ice melting in water. You were melting and crackling and drowning and then you were running and hiding and promising yourself that you wouldn't let someone get that close again.

Was that what love feels like?

It's funny how you can make yourself forget. You can spin around to music or watch the stars and turn of your brain for a moment. Only a moment, nothing more permanent than that. Perhaps you can live like that for the rest of your life, on stolen moments of silence and bubbles in your head. You can ignore the thing that scrapes at the back of your head like metal on bone. You can let Ginny paint your nails and pretend that you don't eat because you choose not to, not because you can't. Perhaps that's what friendship is like, feeling like you are both on the edge of a cliff and if you cling on to each other you won't fall, or if you do you fall together. You try to remember what she told you when you were small, about goodness and friends, but it blurs and floats away from you, everything about her has become intangible and everything that is tangible is too much for you to bear. Your brain tangles a web around the last part of her, the part that follows you around and forces you to remember. The part that reminds you that you are real, that you aren't like her, that you can't just fade and shine and leave, no matter how much you want to.

How thin would you have to be to float away?

Author's Note: I have had this written for ages but was at odds with myself about posting it after I found out about Evanna Lynch's past eating disorder. I didn't know if I felt like it was disrespectful given her amazing recovery and this fic could be seen as glamorising the disease. Which it isn't meant to. Please tell me if it is and I'll look over it and try to edit.


	3. Ginny Rotten

Warning: This chapter deals with self-mutilation. Click back if you are easily triggered.

There's something changing in you. It's getting worse… The rotting. "Spoiled rotten". That's what he said when you wouldn't listen. It's been rotting since then, festering inside your stomach, making it ache. It's surprising that nobody notices the smell; the skin should be falling off by now. You lanced all of the flesh away by fasting but it still remained. If it's in your bones it's sure to spread. Lockhart did a spell on Harry that removed his bones… could you replicate it? Could you collapse into yourself with no more bones and just stay there, rotten skin and flesh? You tried it with a knife once, cut through the skins and tried to scrape away the bone… But there was too much blood. Blood and bones and silver shining out. It tickled a bit and made you shiver, felt like you were being turned inside out but you couldn't do it, couldn't get rid of them. Bones are too strong for that.

Humans are too hardy to be whittled away.

When you were little you wanted to be a War Witch, made your mother weave bells in your hair. Your brothers wouldn't fight you, not properly so you had to make your own battles. Hitting walls, running until your legs buckled. Nobody understood that you needed to be stronger. You needed to build up your protections so nothing bad could ever happen to you. You tried to weave them into your being like a spider's web, but the thing about a web is that once you cut one strand the rest fall away.

And he cut away so many, it's barely there anymore.

You loved him more than life itself. He was a hero, just like a War Wizard and he was only a year older than you. But he didn't see you. You were young and silly and spoilt and nobody ever noticed you. And then Tom found you and said that you were his Best Friend… You had never had a Best Friend before and he said that he didn't have one either. Said that you were both special and that he needed you to do things for you because he wasn't as Brave or Clever as you. The blood washed off easily enough back then, you didn't care about it because you were doing something that nobody else could do. Something that he couldn't trust anyone else to do. But then people started noticing and you weren't all that clever really and you couldn't figure out how to hide it and he Hated you. He wasn't your friend anymore, how could anybody be friends with you? You were Small and Boring and Stupid. And he remembered that your mother had called you spoilt and he said it again "Spoilt Rotten", told you that there was a rot in you that wouldn't ever go away because you had been born wrong, and your whole body wanted to hurt itself.

He was evil, you know that. But he was right.

When everyone found out they noticed you for a while, but it wasn't wonderful like you had always thought it would be. They could see the rot on you and they were scared and disappointed. They could never love you again because he had made the rot real and they could see it in your eyes. So you shied away from them and they started to forget you again. You smiled. You had just started your game and you didn't want them to see, didn't want them to make you break the rules. Because everything was pure and white and the rot just had to stop if you were pure enough.

You were never pure enough, the rot made sure of that, poisoning everything you put inside yourself.

Nobody else has a rot, you don't think. You've never seen anyone else who looks as rotten as you, you know that for sure. For a while you thought that maybe people just hid their rot but they were too careless, never cheating or playing games. So surely it would have overwhelmed everyone else by then. If it did that you would be the purest person in the world. The most clever and funny and beautiful. Everyone would love you, because there would be no-one to hate you. You could stand at the top of the Astronomy tower and laugh into the moonlight and there would be no more whispering and listening. And then the rot would be too full of everyone else that it would never claim you and you would be able to lie down and sleep and be safe and never have to worry again.

Sleep is something that other people have.

Sometimes you look at yourself and wonder if you are mad. Wonder if everyone sees it but you. But you don't know what it's like to feel any other way than how you've always felt. If you have no points of comparison how can you analyse it? You tried to read a book about madness but it was boring and just talked about different potions to give to mad people and Potions is your worst subject. You asked your mother once if there was something different about you but she just gave you a funny look and changed the subject. Perhaps she always knew that there was something wrong with you and that's why she wouldn't let you play with your brothers. Maybe it makes her sad to look at you.

What did she do to deserve a daughter like you?

Author's Note: Just something from Ginny's perspective. I don't know how much I like this chapter but I couldn't figure out what specifically I didn't like. "War Witches" are from Lightning on the Wave's "Sacrifices" arc. A wonderful Harry Potter AU that is actually longer than the series itself. Go and read it if you haven't already. You won't regret it.


	4. Luna Blue

The sky was blue the day of the funeral, a beautiful blue, too beautiful for a day like that. "Cerulean," you said and people looked at you concerned- their heads moved and their mouths made clicking sounds like beetles clicking their pincers, unsure of what to say so clicking and clucking rather than forming words. Your father gripped your hand you stared straight ahead. He was shaking, it seemed like he hadn't stopped shaking since it happened and you wished you could face him and make him stop. But nine year olds aren't really equipped to having emotional interventions, so you just kept on staring hoping that by keeping completely still she can calm him. Your mother could calm him with just a look, just a smile. You weren't a baby; you knew all about his problems with his nerves, that other people say that he's not normal. You wonder (you still wonder) if other fathers have nerves, if other fathers don't bathe, don't eat unless prompted to. A witch asked your father if there are any relatives they can stay with, but you knew what she was really asking. She was asking if you needed someone to look after you, if they should send you away. Your father shook his head, said that they could manage. You knew what managing meant. Managing meant that he would make sure there's food at home, but that's it. In the two weeks since it happened you'd already learnt to cook for yourself, to comb your own hair and put yourself to bed. Your mother always talked about how mature you were; how you understood what other children couldn't that you were so clever her little Ravenclaw.

There's that blue again, blue and bronze, that true blue that you can't escape. Gin's nails are blue, under the skin; her whole body is blue sometimes, when she insisted on staying outside in the cold, the wind biting and almost tearing chunks off her. Chunks is an ugly word, it's too close to fat and she's the antithesis of fat. It's more like a snail's shell, finding one hollowed out at the bottom of the garden with slime still crusted on the inside, untouched by the elements. She's the snail and the shell all at once; vulnerable and grey without her protections, without the guard that you don't know she's already had up until it's already gone. Without her shell she's so beautiful, so fragile. Her red hair blazes like a curtain to her waist and you wonder what people see when the look at her. You see the looks, of course, you get them too. The ones that are too lingering to truly be full of pity. People barely look at you anymore; barely notice what you do, what you don't. They don't even remember your real name half the time, just that silly nickname your dorm mates created a week into your first year. She's the beautiful one, a withered leaf, a fallen autumn leaf. Trampled and torn on the ground that even during the summer, even during its prime had pieces nibbled off by caterpillars until it resembled a shadow puppet, as if all of those holes, all of those wounds, held the true meaning of the thing itself, only shown when a light is shone through. And then you stand back, mouth gaping like a fish and you gain a new perspective- you hadn't noticed *that* before. And autumn leaf with all of it leaf skin torn off, with nothing left but veins and the tiny scraps of leaf skin that cling to them.

But then what are you? She's a copper leaf, torn by the elements, burnished and beautiful. But what are you? A sliver of waxing moon? Luna, lunar, moon, waxing, growing, becoming. But becoming what, a woman? That isn't happening anymore, you have made quite sure of that. Waning, then, instead. Waning before you have been full. You smile- a cure for lycanthropy. You should market it, not eating so you won't become something awful. Write about it in the Quibbler. You'd save your father's paper. Even your nickname, Looney involves the moon, moon sickness. Moonlight is the only light that feels safe, the only light that isn't blinding, doesn't leave spots on your vision. You only ever saw him in the moonlight, when you tried to see him in the sun it was too bright, too violent, his fire blinded you and it hurt to look at him. You wanted him to be like you, to understand but he didn't. You thought that someone who lived his life as a double would but he didn't. He would meet you by the stream, where you'd go to watch the moon. He told you a story about muggles fishing for the moon and never being able to touch it, so they flew up to it instead. They touched it and it was cold and bare and they stuck a flag in it and pronounced it conquered. He knew lots of stories but his speech was awkward, unused to being alone, not having someone to keep up with. Some people thought him a double, part of a set, useless without his match but she saw through that, saw through the obvious similarities. But he was more like a doppelganger, an imperfect yet perfect copy, not quite human in his own right but rather a reflection of another personality. He was supposed to be a half person like you but he kept doing things that only a whole person could. He tried to trick you, tell you that you were beautiful; that you didn't need to hurt yourself but you could see through him. He was feeling guilty, he couldn't forget and just talk and touch, he had to try and tie you down, to imprison you so you couldn't leave.

But people always leave, nobody ever wants to stay. Nobody can argue with that. You and Gin are both just honest about your feelings. You aren't under any illusions, you don't think that there's a heaven, that you'll see your mother, despite what you tell your father. You aren't trying to get to your mother but rather trying to get away from her, from that bang and from the image of her hand lying by the doorframe while you were paralysed with shock. You wince, bite your tongue, you don't think about that, you don't remember, not anymore. You can't, you can't live with that image still in your head. Pain takes the image away, gives your mind a focus. You wonder if you cut yourself up like Gin does you would be able to cut it out. She cut him out, she told you once, when she stopped for a moment and became deadly serious. If you cut out your eyes would you forget how to see? Forget the concept of sight at all? Eyes are the window to the soul, if you went in through the eyes then surely you would be able to pick out all of the darkness, all of the bad and patch yourself up, become a new person. Obliviation should be an elective procedure.

A/N: Sorry updates are so infrequent... I find that when I'm relatively mentally healthy all of my creativity dries up. Am holding on by my nails, trying not to relapse at the moment. Seriously, anyone who has come to this story to look for a how-to guide, who has any way out, go now. The longer you're ill the harder it is to recover. Stay safe, everybody!


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